Mycena inclinata

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Mycena_inclinata.html

Ecology: Saprobic on the well decayed wood of hardwoods; usually growing in dense clusters (but sometimes growing alone or scattered); spring and fall (or over winter in warmer climates) widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains, and occasionally reported on the West Coast.

Cap: 1-5 cm; broadly conical, becoming broadly bell-shaped and usually retaining a central bump; vaguely lined or grooved radially; bald; tacky; the margin usually featuring tiny, fringe-like "teeth" when young, and in age often becoming somewhat tattered, or splitting; color variable (brown to yellowish brown, brownish or tan, but often developing yellow stains and areas); fading to dingy whitish with exposure to sunlight.

Gills: Narrowly attached to the stem; close or nearly distant; sometimes with well developed cross-gills when mature; whitish to pale grayish, sometimes becoming yellowish or pinkish in age; not bruising or staining.

Stem: 5-10 cm long; 2-4 mm thick; equal; hollow; bald or with tiny fibers and flakes, especially when young; whitish near the apex, yellowish to yellow in the midsection, and brown to reddish brown below.

Flesh: Insubstantial; pale.

Odor and Taste: Odor mealy to foul and mealy; taste mealy.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative to brownish on cap surface.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 7-10 x 5-7 ; amyloid; broadly elliptical; smooth. Pleurocystidia absent. Cheilocystidia abundant; of the "broom cell" type, with rod-like projections and nodes. Pileipellis elements diverticulate, with short nodes and rod-like projections.

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Clavariadelphus americanus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Clavariadelphus_americanus.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with oaks and pines; growing scattered or gregariously; summer and fall; widely distributed in eastern North America.

Fruiting Body: 3-15 cm high; up to about 3 cm wide at the apex; cylindric or narrowly club-shaped at first, becoming more broadly club-shaped with age; dry; initially smooth, becoming shallowly wrinkled; orangish buff when young, darkening to orangish brown or cinnamon brown; flesh whitish, sometimes staining brownish in places when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: Surface negative with KOH, greenish with iron salts.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 8-12 x 4-6 ; broadly egg-shaped; smooth.

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Russula pulverulenta

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Russula_pulverulenta.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with hardwoods or conifers; sometimes found in urban settings; growing alone (usually so, in my collecting experience), scattered, or gregariously; summer and fall; widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains.

Cap: 3.5-8 cm; convex with an inrolled margin when young, becoming broadly convex to flat with a shallow depression, with a more or less straight margin that is prominently grooved and pimply; dry or slightly moist; when young covered by a dense layer of orange-yellow to yellow material which eventually breaks up to form loose patches that often wear off with age; dark grayish brown to yellowish brown; the skin peeling away easily at the margin, sometimes about halfway to the center.

Gills: Attached to the stem; close or almost distant; not generally forking, or occasionally forking near the stem; white; sometimes discoloring brownish to yellowish in age.

Stem: 3.5-5 cm long; 1-2 cm thick; when young white, overlaid with yellow granules; later whitish towards the top and yellowish below; sometimes discoloring yellowish brown with age; dry; often becoming cavernous; fairly smooth.

Flesh: White to pale yellowish; unchanging when sliced; olive to olive brown around worm holes.

Odor and Taste: Odor sweet and fragrant, or slightly foul, or in some cases absent; taste slightly to moderately acrid.

Chemical Reactions: KOH on cap surface orange to orangish or negative. Iron salts on stem surface negative.

Spore Print: Creamy.

Microscopic Features: Spores 6-8 x 5-7 ; with warts .4-1.2 high; broadly elliptical or nearly round; connecting lines scattered, occasionally forming partial reticula. Pleurocystidia positive in sulphovanillin. Pileocystidia absent. Floccose patches on cap and stem composed of warty, septate hyphae that are yellow in a water mount (avoid KOH, which dissolves the warts).

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Ganoderma oregonense

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Ganoderma_oregonense.html

Ecology: Saprobic and sometimes parasitic; growing alone or in groups on decaying conifer logs and stumps, or from the wounds of injured, living trees; causing a white rot; annual; fall through spring; distributed in the Pacific Northwest and California. The illustrated and described collection is from Oregon.

Cap: 10-50+ cm across; 5-15+ cm deep; more or less semicircular in outline, or irregularly kidney-shaped; surface with a lacquered-looking outer crust; brownish red or reddish brown overall, with or without a few paler zones; bald.

Pore Surface: Whitish to pale brownish when young, becoming medium brown with age; bruising darker brown; with 2-4 circular pores per mm; tubes 1-3 cm deep.

Stem: Usually absent; when present lateral and stubby, lacquered, brownish red to reddish brown.

Flesh: Tough but not woody; whitish to creamy; without melanoid bands or concentric growth zones (see discussion).

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH instantly black on flesh.

Spore Print: Reddish brown.

Microscopic Features: Spores 11-16 6-8 m including the hyaline vesicular appendix; more or less ellipsoid, with a truncated end; appearing double-walled, with a series of "pillars" between the walls; finely stippled; inamyloid; brown in KOH. Cystidia and setae not found. Hyphal system trimitic. Clamp connections present. Terminal cells on cap surface clavate; 7.5-12.5 m wide; thick-walled; golden in KOH.

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Perenniporia ohiensis

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Perenniporia_ohiensis.html

Ecology: Saprobic on the deadwood of hardwoods; common on fence posts and rails (especially those of locust wood); causing a white rot; resupinate or, more commonly, with a cap; perennial; found year-round (especially in warmer climates) but generally appearing in summer and fall; fairly widely distributed in North America from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest, but apparently absent or rare on the West Coast and in the Pacific Northwest.

Fruiting Body: Sometimes lacking a cap but usually with a tough, hoof-shaped cap measuring up to 2 cm across; upper surface smooth or finely velvety, whitish at first, becoming brownish and eventually black, often with a zoned appearance; pore surface ivory white, the pores surrounded by thick walls; 3-7 pores per mm; tubes to 4 mm deep per layer; flesh woody and tough, whitish to brownish; stem absent.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: Cap surface red to blackish with KOH.

Spore Print: Presumably white, but not documented (I have not tried to obtain one).

Microscopic Features: Spores 13-16 x 7-10 (but my collections frequently feature smaller spores, measuring 8-11 x 5-6 ); smooth; elliptical, with a severely truncated end; hyaline in KOH; in Melzer's sometimes faintly or strongly dextrinoid; thick-walled. Cystidia absent. Hyphal system di- to trimitic.

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Pluteus leoninus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Pluteus_leoninus.html

Ecology: Saprobic, growing alone or scattered on decaying hardwood logs and debris, or growing terrestrially; causing a white rot; late spring, early summer and fall east of the Rocky Mountains, over winter on the West Coast; widely distributed in North America. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois and Québec.

Cap: 3-5 cm; convex or bell-shaped at first, becoming broadly convex or nearly flat, but often retaining a broad central bump; finely velvety to silky, especially over the center; golden to dull or brownish yellow, with a brownish center; the margin not lined.

Gills: Free from the stem or nearly so; close or crowded; short-gills frequent; whitish at first, becoming pink.

Stem: 5-9 cm long; up to 0.5 cm thick; tapering slightly to apex; bald or finely silky; whitish to yellowish or brownish; becoming hollow; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Thin; white; unchanging when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: KOH negative on cap surface.

Spore Print: Pink.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5.5-7 x 5-6 ; subglobose to broadly ellipsoid; smooth; ochraceous in KOH; inamyloid. Pleurocystidia widely lageniform, subutriform, or subsaccate; thin-walled; occasionally with one or two small hooks; hyaline in KOH; scattered; to 100 x 28 . Cheilocystidia fusiform or narrowly lageniform; thin-walled; hyaline in KOH; often abundant; to 65 x 12 . Pileipellis a cutis. Clamp connections absent.

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Irpex lacteus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Irpex_lacteus.html

Ecology: Saprobic; spreading across the bottoms and sides of fallen hardwood logs (occasionally on the wood of conifers); annual; causing a white rot of the sapwood and rarely the heartwood; occasionally reported as parasitic on the living wood of cherry trees; appearing year-round; widely distributed in North America but rare or absent in the Southwest.

Fruiting Body: A spreading patch of whitish pore surface with 2-3 pores per mm, soon becoming tooth-like rather than poroid, except near the margin; developing shelflike edges or even caps when growing on the sides of logs; caps when present kidney-shaped to irregular, with a whitish to grayish (often zoned), velvety to hairy upper surface; flesh thin, whitish, and tough; without a stem.

Chemical Reactions: All parts brownish orange with KOH.

Spore Print: White.

Microscopic Features: Spores 5-7 x 2-3 ; smooth; elliptical to subcylindric; hyaline in KOH; inamyloid. Cystidia conspicuous; abundant to scattered; 50-110 x 5-10 ; encrusted apically or over nearly the whole length. Thin-walled generative hyphae frequently branching; 2-4 wide. Thick-walled skeletal hyphae rarely branching; 2.5-6 wide. Clamp connections absent.

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Tylopilus variobrunneus

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Tylopilus_variobrunneus.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with oaks; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; summer and fall; probably widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains. The illustrated and described collection is from Illinois.

Cap: 5-12 cm; convex when young, becoming broadly convex or nearly flat in age; dry; bald at maturity; medium grayish brown, fading to tan.

Pore Surface: Creamy white, becoming pinkish brown; bruising promptly brown; pores circular to angular, 1-3 per mm; tubes to 10 mm deep.

Stem: 3-10 cm long; 1-2 cm thick; more or less equal; brownish; reticulate with a fine, brown reticulum; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: White; staining slowly brownish when sliced.

Odor and Taste: Odor not distinctive; taste mild, not distinctive.

Chemical Reactions: Ammonia pinkish orange on cap surface; negative on flesh. KOH dark red to dark gray on cap surface; yellowish to orangish on flesh. Iron salts grayish green on cap surface; bluish on flesh.

Spore Print: Brownish pink to pinkish brown.

Microscopic Features: Spores 10-13 x 3.5-4.5 m; subfusiform; smooth; hyaline to yellowish in KOH. Hymenial cystidia fusoid-ventricose; golden in KOH. Pileipellis a collapsing trichoderm; golden in KOH; terminal cells cylindric with rounded or fusiform-cystidioid apices, 2.5-5 m wide.

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Helvella dryophila

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Helvella_dryophila.html

Ecology: Mycorrhizal with coast live oak and other oaks on the West Coast; growing alone, scattered, or gregariously; originally described from northern California (Vellinga & Nguyen 2013; the type collection was made on the the UC Berkeley campus); found from Oregon to southern California, eastward to the Sierra Nevada. The illustrated and described collections are from northern California.

Cap: 1.5-4.5 cm across and 2-3.5 cm high; irregularly lobed and convoluted; black to dark gray; bald but wrinkled; the margin attached to the stem in several places; undersurface bald, gray to grayish brown.

Stem: 3-5.5 cm long; 1-2.5 cm thick; more or less equal; grayish to dark gray, discoloring yellowish with age; deeply and ornately ribbed and pocketed; ribs with blunt edges; basal mycelium white.

Flesh: Thin; brittle; chambered; whitish to grayish.

Odor: Not distinctive.

Microscopic Features: Spores 15-20 x 10-13 m; broadly ellipsoid; smooth; with one oil large droplet; hyaline in KOH and in water. Asci 200-250 x 7.5-10 m; 8-spored. Paraphyses 200-275 x 2.5-6 m; filiform, with rounded to clavate, subcapitate, or irregularly swollen apices; smooth; hyaline to brown, often with granular contents. Excipular surface a palisade of clavate, hyaline to brown terminal elements 15-20 x 5-12.5 m.

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Arachnion album

https://www.mushroomexpert.com/Arachnion_album.html

Ecology: Saprobic; terrestrial; growing gregariously in or near grassy areas (lawns, pastures, ditches, golf courses, and so on); summer and fall; widely distributed and fairly common east of the Rocky Mountains; rarely reported from Oregon. The illustrated and described collections are from Illinois and Indiana.

Fruiting Body: Shaped like a ball, or nearly so; 1-2.5 cm across; 1-2.5 cm high; whitish to very pale brownish when fresh, becoming brownish with old age; surface bald; skin paper thin; interior composed of tiny sand-like granules—white at first, then yellowish, then light gray and eventually dark gray; sterile base absent.

Odor and Taste: Not distinctive.

Microscopic Features: Spores 3-5 x 3-4 m; broadly ellipsoid or occasionally subglobose, with or without a short (1-2 m) pedicel; smooth; hyaline to greenish-yellowish in KOH. Capillitium and paracapillitium not found. Peridioles 250-500 x 200-300 m; ellipsoid or subglobose; brownish yellow; filamentous hyaline hyphae 2-8 m wide present on the surfaces.

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